Cartoon rage in Sweden
Paul Marshall at NRO looks at the latest outbreak of Mo cartoon rage in Sweden. Background from Allah and Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna, which began tracking the story in July. LGF has Sweden’s response. The government told Pakistan it is sorry for “hurt feelings.”
Muslims gathered outside the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper in Orebro to support the freedom of speech of the offending cartoonist.
No, just making sure you’re paying attention.
They protested and demanded an apology, of course:
Scores of Muslims staged a demonstration Friday against a Swedish newspaper and demanded that its chief editor apologize for publishing a drawing depicting the Prohet Muhammad with a dog’s body.
The rally outside the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper in Orebro followed formal protests by Iran and Pakistan in a brewing conflict over the cartoon made by Swedish artist Lars Vilks.
Sweden’s prime minister called for mutual respect between Muslims, Christians and nonreligious groups in an attempt to avert a wider conflict. Last year, fiery protests erupted in Muslim countries after a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depiction of the prophet for fear it could lead to idolatry. About 300 people rallied outside the newspaper’s offices, demanding an apology and saying the cartoon, a rough sketch showing Muhammad’s head on a dog’s body, was insulting to Muslims, the news agency TT reported. “We want to show Nerike’s Allehanda that Muslims in this city are upset over what happened,” Jamal Lamhamdi, chairman of the Islamic cultural center in Orebro, told Swedish public radio. Orebro is a city of about 100,000 residents, 125 miles west of Stockholm.Earlier, a handful of people, mostly youth, staged a separate demonstration outside the newspaper in defense of press freedom, TT reported. Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief Ulf Johansson met with Lamhamdi but refused to apologize for the cartoon, which was part of an Aug. 19 editorial criticizing several Swedish art galleries for refusing to display a series of prophet drawings by Vilks. “They say they are offended and I regret that, because our purpose was not to offend anyone,” Johansson told The Associated Press. “But they are asking for an apology and a promise that I never again publish a similar image … and that I cannot do.” The editorial defended “Muslims’ right to freedom of religion” but also said it must be permitted to “ridicule Islam’s most foremost symbols — just like all other religions’ symbols.”
The Organization of the Islamic Conference is stirring up the Religion of Perpetual Outrage pot.
The cartoonist speaks:
Vilks said he made the drawings after being invited to contribute to an art exhibition in central Sweden on the theme of dogs.
“To begin with, the message was to make a critical contribution on the dog theme, but it took another direction,” Vilks told AP in a phone interview. “Why can you not criticize Islam when you can criticize other religions?”
Question of the century.
See what others have said
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- I’m A Pundit Too » Blog Archive » Jihad Central 9-01-07
- More Cartoons = more pissed off Muslims! « Mostly Korea and everything else
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Categories: Danish Cartoons, Jyllands-Posten
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Woke me up!
I wonder how long VILKs will survive. Theo Van Gogh didn’t last long after he criticized Islam. Europe had better wake up and rid themslelves of the Islamic radicals in any way possible.
Islam cannot be reasoned with, but it can be dealt with.
at least Vilks asked the right question about why Islam cannot be criticized but every other religion is fair game …
Europe and the USA both need to wake up and insist on assimilitation into western society by those coming from another society …
to paraphrase the “convert or die” crappola we hear … how about …
“assimilate or leave” …
I believe in peace, want peace, pray for peace.
But rabid peaceniks do not understand that diplomacy, appeasement, and “peace” are foreign concepts to certain individuals.
Namely, certain individuals who riot every time someone looks at them the wrong way, breathes the wrong way, or says the wrong thing.
Either we fight this or we live in, personally, on a daily basis. There is no room for being lukewarm on this issue.
Me - I choose to fight.
Perpetual outrage! Muslims should team up with Jesse Jackson.
The Australian’s have the right idea - assimilate or find a country that sympathizes with your views.
Instead of Islam - His Lamb!
…perpetual outrage is right.
Muslims protested harmless cartoons in a 1921 British paper. Paper and government told them fuggedaboudit. Protest ended.
A lesson for the appeasers of today.
I would think that everytime they demonstrate against a damn cartoon if you round them up and deport them for stupidity you could end the problem very quickly.
I see the Friday silly’s are effecting everyone…. lol. I liked it.
the pen is mightier than the sword…
This could have been avoided had the cartoonist claimed that the head was of ancient Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal, who was frequently portrayed in sculpture with an animal’s body.
For a moment there I thought I had a stroke induced aphasia, I was reading the words but they weren’t making sense.
#10 - What fun would that be?
gippergirl said:
that may be a truism in the western world … but not in the 4th century muslim world the radicals are stuck in …
in order to be affected by the written word one must have some semblance of rationalisic mental capacity with which to analyze and evaluate those words …
which has to mean that one is not overcome by bouts of irrational emotionalism bolstered by fanaticism as the base of thought and action …
need I say more?
Translation…
They have $#!^ for Brains.
ajmontana
I knew I could count on my trusty translator … lol
All I see from Muslims is violence, threats, seething, and them trying to portray themselves as victims. I have absolutely no tolerance for them and their actions. We have several immigrants from the Balkans in the Boise, ID area and some belong to the Religion of Perpetual Outrage. So far they haven’t tried any of this crap and keep a very low profile. Most of the citizens of Southern Idaho would be less then tolerant of this type of behavior.
To bad I dont speak Vai…
ajmontana
I even know where there is a job opening for you if you did …
so howzabout a cartoon that shows Mohammed’s body with a dog’s head?
let’s get creative.
PS: What is a crapweasel’s brain made of?
How to break up a Muslim Protest:
1) Boil some pork weenies
2) Separate weenies from the wah wah
3) Let weenie wah wah cool (or don’t)
4) Fill up a Super Soaker
5) Stand out on balcony
6) Shoot Weenie wah wah til you run out.
7) Watch them run.
They looked once but the x-rays showed nothing bear.
So we are talking about Crapweasel Airheads. Got it.
A PC Quiz:
You live in a nice home, one you have worked hard to build and improve. A tribe of cockroaches decides they like it too, moves into the walls and begins breeding like crazy.
One day you drop a bit of food on the floor and forget to clean it up. The Council of Cockroaches meets and decides to go after the morse. Seeing this, you attempt to shoo them away in a humane manner. 37 cockroaches attack you and begin gnawing on your ankles. At this point you:
1. Apologize profusely for your rude behavior and move permanently into the garage.
2. Set up cockroach feeding stations, initiate subsidies for a cockroach breeding program and lobby the neighbors to join a Friends of Cockroaches Society.
3. Hire an exterminator.
If you answered 3, you failed this PC quiz and will shortly receive a pleasant, unexpected visit from Achmed and his persuasive buddies.
Make that “morsel.”
The only solution is for American cartoonists to print as many cartoons as possible, as often as possible.
Where are the first amendment ACLU liberals on this one?
Liberty or Sharia…there is no middle ground at this point.
Respectfully,
eric http://www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com
Could that noise I hear be those “moderate muslims” so many talk about? Thank God they finally let their voices…oh. Someone’s car alarm. Never mind…
Why can’t we question Islam? Just because we can’t, that’s why!
I am so tired of this PC crap when it comes to islam. I will never submit to them or their stupid laws.
Yea, where is the ACLU? Nowhere to be seen until some poor Christian utters Merry Christmas or some other banned religious phrase
America (& Europe) had better wake up because things are moving quickly and it’s soon going to be too late.
This seems to be the case with everyone, except of course all the crapweasels on the hill and the media. barf.
How dare he associate Islam to Dogs. As a dog lover, I am extremely enraged. I am going to impose a barkwa on him. So help me Rover.
I don’t think he was giving this his best effort, the artist, come on I have seen better infidel forbidden blasphemous cartooning. I am just saying, he isn’t drawing at the same standards as the Dutch. I don’t know if he is really trying to make a serious cartoon statement!
If some of the people I’ve met is any indication of Europe, things are heading for a very very bad end. You know what’s really shocking about some of the people I’ve met? They’ve actually tried to spin this whole cartoon thing into a positive thing about Islam!
They say that all these protests show that Muslims are very serious about their faith and we should respect that. Other religions on the other hand just don’t take it that seriously hence they don’t care when people mock them. Muslims are admirable because they take their religion seriously, unlike the Jews and Christians and the rest.
I nearly died when I heard that.
That’s like comparing a hand grenade to an apple.
Baby-back ribs in every oven; a bobble-head Mohammed in every household!
Desert lover said (#13):
Should be 7th century. That’s when mohammed started claiming that God spoke to him.
KCtheKat said (#30):
Amazing. A kat who is a dog lover!
BTW, I second the barkwa.
More erroneous media regurgitation.
A Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad?
Twelve? Really?
Here, look the twelve cartoons over.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/75/Jyllands-Posten-pg3-article-in-Sept-30-2005-edition-of-KulturWeekend-entitled-Muhammeds-ansigt.png
How many cartoons do you see in which Muhammad is actually depicted?
So many ‘journalists’ have served us so poorly.
This is going to get me into deep trouble, but I have to get something off my chest. Here goes:
Who here remembers when “Piss Christ” came out in 1989? For those that don’t know what that is, it’s a crucifix in a jar of urine. The artist, Andres Cerrano, also did “Madonna and Child II,” also in 1989, which is also submerged in urine.
Question: How many death threats do you think Mr. Cerrano received from (excuse the wordage here) pissed-off Christians? I am a Christian, and I’m honoured and proud to say it. I don’t like what Mr. Cerrano did, and I don’t call it art. But I’m not about to go hunt him down for it.
Whatever you think about Mr. Cerrano and the photograph, it was free speech. So why do we fear the reactions of Islamic zealots?
Did the gallery that featured the photograph stop to think about “maybe this will offend some Christians, so we’d better get ready for the bomb threats and suicide bombers.” I’ll bet they didn’t.
Did Newsweek, when they put the Star of David (shown riddled with bullet holes) on their front cover worry about what the Jewish people or Nation would say or do? Did they worry that their head office would have a car bomb driven into it? I’ll bet they didn’t.
It’s easy to deride Christians, to make fun of them, to dip the Bible in urine or the loo … to shoot at it, to burn it. It’s easy because we know that Christians are taught to “turn the other cheek.”
To those that do so to Christians; if you are so brave - try doing that or saying that about Islam … or the Prophet. Maybe Andrew Bolt said it best when he wrote on 6-APR-2007; “So when I see a Western artist mock Christ, I see an artist advertising not his courage but his cowardice – by not daring to mock what would threaten him more.” And yes, he was talking about Islam.
We don’t worry that some Christian zealot will decide that he or she doesn’t like some of the anti-Christian books and will fire-bomb the bookstores that carry them. Yet Borders refused to carry the magazine/paper that ran the Prophet’s charicatures. Why? They were worried about safety.
Dare I say it … they were afraid. They were afraid not of insulting Islam and the Prophet … they were worried about the reactions of the zealots. They were worried about one or more of their stores getting bombed, or some suicide bomber walking into the store and blowing themselves up.
And now, this. The Prophet’s head on a dog’s body. How long will it be before a Christian nun is murdered to “avenge” this “insult to Islam?”
In post #13, Desertlover said “which has to mean that one is not overcome by bouts of irrational emotionalism bolstered by fanaticism as the base of thought and action …” and in post #2, Publiuswarmac9999 said; “Islam cannot be reasoned with, but it can be dealt with.”
This, I fear, is right. Islam as a whole is not ready to come into the 21st Century. They are too subservient, too happy to have their lives, their beings dictated to.
The question becomes will we have to “deal” with Islam? Some people have been talking about a religious war against Islam. Not here, that I’ve seen … but elsewhere.
Folks, I’m not a spring chicken anymore. I’ve been to too many places, seen and heard too many things to return to the innocence of my youth. I’ve been tormented by the nightmares that refuse to go away … the ones that wake one up at night.
This I fear, is another. I’m not a bigot, I’m not an anti-Semite … but the reactions of the Islamic zealots scares me. Maybe that makes me an “Islamophobe.”
I don’t worry about what Christians or Jews will do when they see or hear something they don’t like. Having lived in Ohio, I didn’t worry about the folks from Michigan (except when the Buckeyes and the Wolverines played against each other.) But I do worry about the Islamists.
Does that make me a bigot?
Wait until the liberals shove down a hate crime bill that makes it a jailable offense to use your first amendment rights.
Entropy40 said
I believe it makes you a realist.